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Hymn to St Cecilia<br />
Julie Cooper, Kirsty Hopkins soprano<br />
Kim Porter alto<br />
Mark Dobell tenor<br />
Ben Davies bass<br />
I<br />
In a garden shady this holy lady<br />
With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,<br />
Like a black swan as death came on<br />
Poured forth her song in perfect calm:<br />
And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin<br />
Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,<br />
And notes tremendous from her great engine<br />
Thundered out on the Roman air.<br />
Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,<br />
Moved to delight by the melody,<br />
White as an orchid she rode quite naked<br />
In an oyster shell on top of the sea;<br />
At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing<br />
Came out of their trance into time again,<br />
And around the wicked in Hell’s abysses<br />
<strong>The</strong> huge flame flickered and eased their pain.<br />
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions<br />
To all musicians, appear and inspire:<br />
Translated Daughter, come down and startle<br />
Composing mortals with immortal fire.<br />
II<br />
I cannot grow;<br />
I have no shadow<br />
To run away from,<br />
I only play.<br />
I cannot err;<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no creature<br />
Whom I belong to,<br />
Whom I could wrong.<br />
I am defeat<br />
When it knows it<br />
Can now do nothing<br />
By suffering.<br />
All you lived through,<br />
Dancing because you<br />
No longer need it<br />
For any deed.<br />
I shall never be<br />
Different. Love me.<br />
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions<br />
To all musicians, appear and inspire:<br />
Translated Daughter, come down and startle<br />
Composing mortals with immortal fire.<br />
III<br />
O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,<br />
O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,<br />
Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all<br />
<strong>The</strong> gaucheness of her adolescent state,<br />
Where hope within the altogether strange<br />
From every outworn image is released,<br />
And Dread born whole and normal like a beast<br />
Into a world of truths that never change:<br />
Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.<br />
O dear white children casual as birds,<br />
Playing among the ruined languages,<br />
So small beside their large confusing words,<br />
So gay against the greater silences<br />
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,<br />
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,<br />
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,<br />
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,<br />
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.<br />
O cry created as the bow of sin<br />
Is drawn across our trembling violin.<br />
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.<br />
O law drummed out by hearts against the still<br />
Long winter of our intellectual will.<br />
That what has been may never be again.<br />
O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath<br />
Of convalescents on the shores of death.<br />
O bless the freedom that you never chose.<br />
O trumpets that unguarded children blow<br />
About the fortress of their inner foe.<br />
O wear your tribulation like a rose.<br />
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions<br />
To all musicians, appear and inspire:<br />
Translated Daughter, come down and startle<br />
Composing mortals with immortal fire.<br />
W H Auden<br />
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